I don’t want to celebrate my birthday, because I was never born, I am not born. It is this mortal body that was born; why should I celebrate its birthday? Millions of my disciples celebrate t and in the process note-books are distributed among students; clothes are distributed among the poor and feasts, cash gifts are given to them; kirtana processions are taken out. Why should I limit it by celebrating it with say 10000 or 20000 people? It would be losing proposition because now millions for my sadhaka – disciples are celebrating it and helping crores of people with spiritual gifts.

When you will know divine birth and action of god you will wake up in your divine self. What is the benefit that we get from celebrating Mahatma’s birthday? We come to know that as the birth and actions of the mahatma are divine our birth and actions can also be made divine. Ordinary man does action for ego satisfaction. The great man does action for guiding others, and giving right knowledge to others. He talks of heaven to teach self-restraint to the people; he talks of hells to prevent the people from committing sinful acts. The mahatma inspires us to do meritorious (heaven – giving ) works saving us from allurement of the heaven. But the mahatma belittles both heaven and hell, and his activity aims at giving response in the supreme self, kindling love for the supreme self, and giving knowledge of the supreme self to others as the self is the cause of the apparition of heaven and hell. That is the reason we celebrate Mahatma’s birthday.